The proposed project will study differential fertility and mortality in Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua), and will stress the differences and similarities between Costa Rica, where fertility declines are well advanced, and the other countries. It will distinguish the effects of community variables, average characteristics of members of the community and individual family characteristics on fertility and mortality. The project will analyze economic factors in fertility decision-making and in infant and child mortality and relate all of these factors to the demographic transition in Central America. Much of the analysis will draw on own-children methods for estimating individual fertility histories of women to obtain fertility and child mortality measures. The own-children methods will be tested for sensitivity to errors in the data and in analysis techniques and will be compared with alternate results from other techniques and data sources.